About Me

Known principally for his weekly political columns and his commentaries on radio and television, Chris Trotter has spent most of his adult life either engaging in or writing about politics. He was the founding editor of The New Zealand Political Review (1992-2005) and in 2007 authored No Left Turn, a political history of New Zealand. Living in Auckland with his wife and daughter, Chris describes himself as an “Old New Zealander” – i.e. someone who remembers what the country was like before Rogernomics. He has created this blog as an archive for his published work and an outlet for his more elegiac musings. It takes its name from Bowalley Road, which runs past the North Otago farm where he spent the first nine years of his life. Enjoy.

Bowalley Road Rules

The blogosphere tends to be a very noisy, and all-too-often a very abusive, place. I intend Bowalley Road to be a much quieter, and certainly a more respectful, place.So, if you wish your comments to survive the moderation process, you will have to follow the Bowalley Road Rules.These are based on two very simple principles:Courtesy and Respect.Comments which are defamatory, vituperative, snide or hurtful will be removed, and the commentators responsible permanently banned.Anonymous comments will not be published. Real names are preferred. If this is not possible, however, commentators are asked to use a consistent pseudonym.Comments which are thoughtful, witty, creative and stimulating will be most welcome, becoming a permanent part of the Bowalley Road discourse.However, I do add this warning. If the blog seems in danger of being over-run by the usual far-Right suspects, I reserve the right to simply disable the Comments function, and will keep it that way until the perpetrators find somewhere more appropriate to vent their collective spleen.

Followers

Thursday, 30 June 2016

How Did That Happen! The vote to leave the EU poses a direct threat to the futures of Neoliberalism’s expensively credentialed children. Like no other use of the ballot box in their lifetimes, it has frightened the Tops. It’s as if the yobs and the chavs have turned the world upside down, which, in a way, they have.

THE MAGNITUDE OF THE CRISIS now overtaking Britain is
difficult to exaggerate. A society obsessed with class has somehow to deal with
the impossible fact that those on the bottom have over-ruled those at the top.
Yes, that has happened before in the history of the British Isles: in 1381,
1642, 1832 and 1945. But on all those occasions the Bottom was inspired and
supported by a small but crucial faction of progressive Tops. Brexit is
different. Brexit has turned the progressive historical tradition on its head.
This time the Bottom has thrown in its lot with a rogue faction of reactionary
Tops.

No one in New Zealand has summed up the situation more
succinctly than ex-pat Brit, Josie Pagani. “Nearly every one of the
working-class kids I went to school with voted to leave,” she lamented, “while
everyone I went to university with voted to remain.” The bare statistics back
up Josie’s observation. On the day of the Referendum, the Guardian website affirmed that the factor most closely related to
whether a person had voted to Leave or Remain was their level of education.

Josie’s heartfelt cry recalled one of my most intense
experiences of the 1981 Springbok Tour .

A protest crowd had gathered
outside the Springbok’s Dunedin hotel. People were angry that the deal Hart had
negotiated with the Police, under whose terms protesters were to be allowed
within sight of Carisbrook, had been broken. In light rain, they sat down on
the street and awaited developments.

Pretty soon the “Blue” riot squad emerged from the hotel
car-park and jogged into position. Across the street a somewhat smaller crowd
of Tour supporters had assembled to watch the fun. “Rug-bee!” they chanted,
“Rug-bee!”

The Blue Squad commander ordered the protesters to disperse.
Nobody moved. He ordered his men to advance, halting them at the very edge of
the sit-down demonstration. From somewhere in the crowd, someone started
singing the national anthem.

The officer in command looked at the crowd. He saw
university professors, lawyers and school teachers; frail old ladies and young
middle-class students. The lone singer had been joined by others: God of nations, at thy feet, in the bonds of
love we meet, hear our voices, we entreat, God defend our free land. The
Police commander sighed. Slowly, rank-by-rank, he withdrew his men.

The pro-tour crowd fell silent. What was happening? The
truck-drivers and shop assistants, freezing workers and bar staff didn’t yet
comprehend the slowly emerging truth. The new reality which, by the end of the
1980s, would become frighteningly clear. Their credentials for citizenship
weren’t good enough. They no longer counted.

The Springbok Tour supporters’ 1981 vote of appreciation to
Rob Muldoon’s National Government was the New Zealand Bottom’s last hurrah.
Three years later, Rogernomics was unleashed upon New Zealand. To be recognised
in the new New Zealand, citizens had to be appropriately credentialed.
Educational qualifications, and the political correctness absorbed while
acquiring them, were the new model citizen’s indispensable passports to the
neoliberal age of globalisation. Those without either were fit only for
exploitation and impoverishment. The “dignity of labour” joined words like “solidarity”
and “equality” in the dustbin at the end of history.

The punishment awaiting Britain’s uncredentialed will be no
less savage than that meted out to the “Rug-bee!” chanters of New Zealand.
Indeed, it is likely to be even more brutal. The vote to leave the EU poses a
direct threat to the futures of Neoliberalism’s expensively credentialed
children. Like no other use of the ballot box in their lifetimes, it has
frightened the Tops. It’s as if the yobs and the chavs have turned the world
upside down, which, in a way, they have.

The retribution of the Tops will be swift and unforgiving.

Already there is speculation that the ouster of Corbyn is
just the opening gambit in a sequence of political moves designed to overturn
the referendum result. Labour’s new leader will mobilise the professional
middle-class around the party’s demand for an early election. Having secured
it, Labour’s will frame the forthcoming vote as a second referendum on Europe.
Those who want to stay out of the EU will be invited to vote for Boris
Johnson’s Tories. Those wishing to stay in will have only one viable option.
The yobs and the chavs will be bought off with a handful of policy sweeteners.
A neo-Blairite Labour Party will secure the Tops’ “Remain” mandate, and Britain
will be awakened from her Brexit fever dream by the EU’s forgiving kiss.

And then the nightmare of the British working-class will
begin in earnest.

This essay was
originally posted on The Daily Blog
of Thursday, 30 June 2016.

Wednesday, 29 June 2016

PICTURE HIM. He’s in his late 40s, tall, greying hair
elegantly styled. His suit is Italian bespoke, from the immigrant tailor with
the studio just around the corner from his favourite pub. His basic salary is
safely into six figures (Sterling) and his bonus this year was spectacular.
What does he do? Basically, he answers questions about the future. Where is the
market going? Where will oil be in six months’ time? What’s happening to gold?
Who’s putting what where? Which commodities are trending up? What’s going down?
It’s not his money, of course, but even so, he’s got to be right at least as
often as he’s wrong. Fortunately, he wears the pressure every bit as stylishly
as he wears his Italian suit.

Not that he’s one of those Old Etonian, Oxbridge toffs like
David Cameron or Boris Johnson. No, no. He received his secondary education at
the local grammar school and graduated from a respectable red-brick university.
Displaying a rare aptitude for student politics, he was swiftly taken up by the
leading lights of the University Labour Club. A vacation job in the office of
his local Labour MP led him into even higher-powered political circles. Upon
graduation a job was waiting for him at Westminster. His boss was only a junior
minister outside Cabinet – but widely regarded as a rising star. Our boy rose
with him.

He met his wife in the lobby of the House of Commons. She
was working for a Tory shadow minister of roughly equal rank to his own. Their
backgrounds were remarkably similar – apart from the fact that, in her case, it
was the University Conservative Club that had spotted her political talents.
“Just think,” she teased, “if Labour had been quicker off the mark we might
have been colleagues!” They were married on the country estate of her boss.
“Marquees everywhere and Krug by the case! Not bad for a grammar school boy!”

The installation of the Conservative Lib-Dem coalition
government in 2010 saw him snapped-up by a major financial institution in the
City. His networks were impressive and his understanding of the UK economy even
more so. What his new employers most admired about him was the ease with which
he carried his many and varied talents. On neither shoulder were there any
discernible chips. Gregarious, good-natured, and the proud possessor of one of
the finest hip-hop collections in London, even the toffs liked him.

If he really was as good as everyone (including himself)
thought he was, however, he should have spotted the enormous risk Cameron was
taking when, in 2013, he promised an In/Out binding referendum on EU
membership. His wife’s parents had friends who were members of UKIP, and they
were worried. “David doesn’t really have a very good grasp of the provincial
middle-class mind”, they vouchsafed to their son-in-law. “We don’t think he
understands the degree to which he’s putting his future into the hands of the
English working-class.”

He saw the irony, of course, but 2013 was back in the BC –
Before Corbyn – era. “Labour is rock-solid for the EU,” he reassured his wife.
“Cameron’s as safe as houses.”

Corbyn was the game-changer. None of our man’s friends in
the party saw the old bugger coming. With his beard and his bicycle – and his
penchant for defying the Whip – Corbyn was regarded as a rather poor 1980s
joke. Like the Scottish National Party, he was not to be taken seriously.

Until he won.

Our man simply could not fathom how Corbyn, like the SNP,
had been able to shake Labour to its very foundations. Neither of them grasped
the impossibility of their dreams. The old fool and his followers didn’t seem
to understand that the world had moved beyond the restorative policies of an
ageing Trotskyist from Islington. Like Scotland, he just didn’t have the right
sort of resources, or the right sort of friends.

Then along came Cameron’s bloody referendum. Suddenly, it
was no longer enough to have the right sort of resources and the right sort of
friends. Unaccountably, they no longer seemed to work.

His wife’s people reported that the shires were in open
revolt. The dragon’s teeth that, year after year, UKIP had sown among the
fields and hedgerows of “Little England” had grown into a veritable Game of
Thrones collection of unstoppable fire-breathers. And who was that, sitting
astride one of their scaly necks, looking for all the world like Daenerys,
Mother of Dragons? Bloody Boris Johnson – that’s who!

Which meant that it was now up to Labour to save the day.
Meaning it was up to Corbyn to save the day. Apparently, he knew how to talk to
working people. He’d persuade them to get out and vote for “Remain”.

Our man’s wife was sceptical. “Corbyn’s a Londoner, darling,
and I’m not sure a Londoner is the right sort of person to persuade your
party’s ‘Friends in the North’. Indeed, I’m not sure that Labour any longer has
anyone who can speak to the working-class of this country about the things that
matter to them.”

Our man wasn’t convinced. Weren’t the polls shifting back
towards ‘Remain’? Hadn’t the tragic assassination of Jo Cox reminded the
working-class who their real friends were? When his bosses asked him which way
the electorate was going to jump, he gave them his most winning smile, and told
them not to worry. At the end of the day, the people would know what was good
for them.

That advice cost his employers a great deal of money.
There’d be no bonus this year to pay for the boys school fees. Never mind,
there was always politics. Labour was in dire need of some sound advice. He
reached for his cell-phone and scrolled through his contacts until he found the
number.

The accent at the other end was pure Oxbridge: “Good Lord,
old chap, how long has it been? To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“I’m calling about Corbyn. Need any help?”

This essay was
originally posted on The Daily Blog
of Tuesday, 28June 2016.

Tuesday, 28 June 2016

Britain's Bellwether: The big vote for "Leave" in Sunderland was the first sign that Britain was on the way out of the European Union. But why did Sunderland, a strongly regenerating industrial city, not grasp the rational arguments for EU membership? Because rationality had nothing to do with how people voted. As always in politics, it was about power and control. Who had it - and who didn't.

SUNDERLAND was Britain’s bellwether. When the news came
through on (our) Friday morning that 61 percent of its citizens had voted to
leave the European Union (EU) the Pound went into freefall. Suddenly, the
political class’s smug confidence that Britain would remain in the EU was
exposed as wishful thinking. If the prosperous, go-ahead city of Sunderland had
decided not to stay, then, clearly, Britain was leaving.

Sunderland prosperous and go-ahead? Well, yes, apparently.
Once famed for its shipbuilding, coal-mining and glass manufacturing, this
classic north-east English industrial city (roughly the size of Christchurch)
has certainly experienced some very hard times over the past forty years.
Today, however, it ranks as one of Britain’s more successful “regenerating”
communities. The automobile manufacturer, Nissan, set up shop in 1986, and
Sunderland now boasts Britain’s largest car factory. More recently, the city’s
burgeoning service sector lifted Sunderland into Britain’s top seven
“intelligent” cities.

From this distance, the temptation is to imagine a
stereotypical group of cloth-capped, blue-collared, left-behind “Mackem”,
sitting in the pub and jeering whenever a “Remain” campaigner appeared the TV
to warn them of the serious economic consequences should Britain vote to leave.

In Maggie Thatcher’s Britain of the1980s, maybe. But not in
the “Sunlun” of 2016.

On the basis of Sunderland’s recent economic performance,
the response of its overwhelmingly working-class population to the EU Referendum
was expected to reflect a cautious optimism. It is, after all, a city in which
upwards of 60 percent of citizens own their own homes, and where large numbers
of young people are taking full advantage of its expanding tertiary education
sector. Sunderland is also an overwhelmingly white city, with fewer than 10
percent non-white residents.

Why then did it vote so decisively to leave the EU?

Exactly the same question is being asked by members of the
political class from all over Britain – and the world. Wasn’t “Remain” the only
rational choice? Even with all its flaws, weren’t the British people
indisputably better off within the EU than without it? Obviously, voting to
“Leave” was politically irrational. It made no sense. Why would anyone do it?

But leaving the EU was never about behaving rationally.
Those asking their fellow Britons to vote for “Leave” were speaking directly to
their hearts – not their heads. Overwhelmingly, the people who voted “Leave” in
the referendum were guided by how they felt about themselves; their community;
and their nation. And these feelings, like just about everything else in
politics, were driven by issues of power and control.

Do you feel in control of your life? Do you feel in control
of your community? Do you feel in control of your country? Do you feel in
control of your future? Who has power over you? Who do you exercise power over?

To those whose employment is both precarious and/or
oppressive, the sense of being in control of one’s life is weak. The sense of being
at the mercy of others, on the other hand, is very strong.

The presence of EU immigrants in British communities, with
all the attendant pressures on local housing, health, education and employment,
not only fuelled anger and prejudice, but also stoked a deep sense of
powerlessness. The EU’s rules had steadily eroded local communities’ power to
decide who could, and could not, join their ranks. It was a power they were
anxious to reclaim.

The growing realisation that the candidates chosen by both
major parties were fundamentally out-of-sync with the values and aspirations of
the people they purported to represent was alienating significant numbers of
voters from the entire electoral process. Democracy means “power is exercised
by the people”, but more and more of the British people were beginning to feel
that they no longer exercised any power at all.

The flipside to these feelings of diminishing power and
control were identifiable in that fraction of the British population who
experienced their country’s membership of the EU as both liberating and
empowering. Far from feeling oppressed in their working lives, these folk saw
the EU as the bringer of ever more exciting opportunities. They welcomed the
growing diversity of Britain’s communities and regarded migrants as exciting
and valuable additions to the national mix. Nor were they alienated by the sort
of people ending up in Parliament. In their eyes, at least, they were admirably
representative.

Feeling thus ruled both sides. “Remainers” clearly believed
a majority of Britons shared their positive feelings towards the EU. “Do they
heck as like!”, responded the good folk of Sunderland.

This essay was
originally posted on the Stuff
website on Monday, 27 June 2016.

Friday, 24 June 2016

Or Not: David Cameron's future as Britain's Prime Minister looks decidedly shaky in the aftermath of Britain's narrow, 52-48 percent, decision to leave the European Union. Cameron wagered everything on his country voting to remain in the EU - and lost. Anyone for Boris?

1.

William, with a
conqueror’s grin,

Told the English: “It
looks like you’re ‘In’!”

But, after one
thousand years,

It’s all ending in
tears.

Europe’s welcome has
worn wafer thin.

2.

Sheffield used to
make knives, forks and spoons,

And sang all of the
Left’s favourite tunes,

Until Labour’s
“Remain!”,

Drove it’s voters
insane,

And now UKIP is over
the moon!

3.

Scotland’s voters
were all shouting “Boo!”

As the Sassenachs
turned England blue.

“If you all lack the
brain

To vote for ‘Remain’,

Well then,
fuck-it-all – we’re leaving too!”

4.

Nigel Farage cried:
“Look what we’ve got,

Without having to
fire one shot!”

He’s forgetting the
price,

That Jo Cox was shot
thrice,

In the name of – come on
Nigel – What?

These limericks were originally posted on The Daily Blog of Friday, 24 June 2016.

Saturday, 18 June 2016

Owen Jones Takes Offence: Dismayed at British Sky Television's handling of the Orlando Massacre, left-wing author and LGBTI activist, Owen Jones, gets ready to disengage from the live media review in which he is participating. Owen's viewpoint, that Orlando should be seen purely and simply as a homophobic atrocity, not an Islamic terrorist attack, while understandable, is, nevertheless, an oversimplification.

OWEN JONES: democratic socialist, LGBTI activist and Guardian
journalist: takes homophobia seriously. So seriously, that earlier this week he
pulled off his microphone and stormed out of Britain’s Sky News studio in
protest at the network’s treatment of the Orlando massacre.

To Jones, what happened in Orlando was very simple: more
than a hundred people had been killed or wounded by a gun-wielding assailant
because they were gay. Before it was anything else, Jones declared, Orlando was
a homophobic atrocity – the worst since the Second World War. Alleged
connections with ISIS; the assailant’s religious beliefs; these were secondary
to the killer’s primary motivation, which was, according to Jones, the violent
erasure of LGBTI identity.

Watching the video, it is easy to see why Jones became so
irate. There is an unmistakeable tone of correction in the presenter’s voice
when he emphasises the victims’ humanity over their sexuality. It was almost as
if he felt unable to identify with the dead and wounded until they had been
redefined into persons for whom he could legitimately grieve. Not queers, but
“human-beings”.

Jones had been invited into the Sky studio to discuss the
way the news media had presented the tragedy. This was, of course, why Jones
was so angry. The dominant theme of the British and American coverage was that
Orlando represented yet another Islamic terrorist assault upon the “freedoms”
and “tolerance” of the enlightened and democratic West. The homophobia which
drove Omar Mateen to gun down the LGBTI patrons of the Pulse nightclub was thus
elided in favour of a more comfortable narrative: “They [ISIS, Radical Islam]
hate us [The West] because of our freedom.”

What must also be acknowledged, however, is that Jones’
determination to keep the focus squarely on Mateen’s homophobic motivation,
itself begs the question of what made Mateen a homophobe in the first place? In
this regard, Jones’ determination to dismiss the killer’s religious beliefs –
along with his declared allegiance to ISIS – as matters irrelevant to his
homophobic actions, is, almost certainly, misguided.

If we reject the proposition that homophobia is genetically
predetermined, then we must accept it as a socially constructed phenomenon. In
the simplest terms: homophobes are not born, they are made.

And if homophobia is a social construction, then we must
acknowledge the important roles played by powerful societal institutions –
including organised religion – in its creation. The Abrahamic religions:
Judaism, Christianity and Islam; all of them militantly monotheistic and
aggressively patriarchal; have always dealt harshly with homosexuality and
lesbianism. Those found guilty of such “abominations” were to be put to death.

It is only in the course of the last half-century that
Western statute law has ceased to offer powerful secular reinforcement to these
religious strictures. Meanwhile, in the overwhelming majority of Islamic
countries, homosexual conduct continues to rank as a capital offence. Even
where more liberal and permissive penal codes now prevail, the legacy of
organised religion’s condemnation of homosexuality is a strong one. In a great
many parts of the supposedly “tolerant” West, anti-homosexual prejudice –
homophobia – continues to lurk just below the surface.

How disturbing the apprehension of this intolerance must be
for those whose sexual orientation is other than heterosexual. In communities
where homophobic antagonism is construed by family and friends, employers and
workmates, as obedience to the will of God, the situation for LGBTI individuals
is much, much worse. Constantly being made aware of one’s “otherness”, while
not being able to either acknowledge it, or escape it, can only generate the most
acute psychological stress.

Was Omar Mateen gay? Quite possibly. Patrons of the Pulse
nightclub remember him, but only as a loner, someone who held himself aloof
from the club’s easy-going conviviality. His first wife remembers him as an
angry man, from whose violent behaviour she had ultimately to be rescued by her
family. Looking at his many brooding selfies, the world will remember Mateen as
someone determined to present his best possible face to the world.

And that could never be his gay face. Was this the crucial
negation which fuelled his anger and twisted his perceptions? When he saw two
men kissing in a Miami street, did he envy their freedom or resent it? Unlike
him, they appeared to fear neither God’s punishment, nor their families’ rejection.
How had they done it? How had they moved beyond sin, beyond shame? He could not
be such a person. He would not be such a person. He would ask God to make him a
different person – a righteous person. He would wage a jihad against his
own desires.

In the end, did he despair of ever defeating those desires?
Is that when he began to fantasise about martyring himself in the holy war
against Western corruption? In the online communities of Islamic fundamentalism
he would have found plenty of encouragement. Paradise awaited those who fell in
the battle against the sinners; the unbelievers; the enemies of God.

The operator who took Mateen’s 911 call, just minutes before
he unleashed hell at the Pulse nightclub, described him as sounding “calm”. In
his final moments, before a hail of Police bullets cut him down, witnesses
similarly recalled his calm, untroubled demeanour.

These descriptions do not conform with Owen Jones’
characterisation of the killer as some sort of enraged, frothing-at-the-mouth,
homophobic thug. It does, however, sound remarkably similar to the descriptions
of the early Christian martyrs as they waited to be torn to pieces in the
amphitheatres of Ancient Rome.

It is what religion does to people: it transforms their
world.

For the early Christian martyrs, the evil arrayed against
them was not a barrier, but a portal, to the presence of God. For the
contemporary soldiers of Islam, dutifully slaying God’s enemies, Paradise
awaits.

On that terrible Sunday morning, where did the broken human
vessel that was Omar Mateen believe himself to be standing? At the gates of
heaven? In God’s favour? Or, was the Pulse nightclub simply the place where he
killed himself – forty-nine times?

This essay was posted
on The Daily Blog and Bowalley
Road on Saturday, 18 June 2016.

Tuesday, 14 June 2016

Are Armed Forces A Necessary Evil?Conservatives assert that government’s highest priority is, and must remain, the protection of its people from armed assault by foreign and/or domestic enemies. A state that can neither defend its borders, nor protect its citizens, is hardly worthy of the name. But, if national defence does not mean ensuring the basic welfare (Health, Education, Housing, Employment) of every citizen – then what does it mean?

IF POLITICS is the language of priorities, then we have been
left in no doubt as to how this government ranks the importance of housing and
defence. Twenty billion dollars, over the next 15 years, will be spent on weapons
of war. Though the outcry against homelessness grows louder every day, hardly a
voice has been raised in protest at this monstrous outlay on the NZ Defence
Force.

How to explain this reluctance to compare the Government’s
willingness to expend more than a billion additional dollars every year, for 15
years, on new and improved weaponry, with its unwillingness to expend a similar
sum on the construction of homes for New Zealand’s poorest citizens?

No doubt conservatives would respond by asserting that
government’s highest priority is, and must remain, the protection of its people
from armed assault by foreign and/or domestic enemies. A state that can neither
defend its borders, nor protect its citizens, is hardly worthy of the name.

Conservatives would further insist that, since a small
nation like New Zealand will forever be dependent on the willingness of larger
powers to come to its defence, it must be prepared to “pull its weight”
military expenditure-wise. Expecting our friends to pour out their blood and
treasure in our defence, when we are unwilling to do the same, is not only
unrealistic – it’s morally indefensible.

But this romantic – almost chivalric – understanding of
national defence bears little resemblance to the brute historical realities of
international conflict. Blood and treasure are almost never poured out for
purposes unrelated to either expanding the borders, or defending the interests,
of the state/s doing the pouring.

If the only arguments in favour of military intervention are
moral arguments, then it is most unlikely to happen. How many nations with the
military capability to do so intervened in time to prevent the Rwandan
genocide? None. Contrast that fatal inaction with the number of New Zealand’s
“friends” who joined in the 2003 invasion of Iraq: a ruined nation which posed
no threat to its neighbours – let alone its aggressors.

The eminent Jewish scientist and historian, Jacob Bronowski,
described war as “organised theft”. How many equally wise scientists and
historians would be prepared to argue that war is organised morality?
(Acknowledging that nearly all American politicians, and an alarming number of
their British and Australian counterparts, believe that war and morality go
together like apple and pie!)

A more realistic assessment of New Zealand’s national
security (or lack of it) would take as its starting point our extraordinary
geographical isolation. So far away are we from the rest of the world that only
a major military power could hope to assail our shores. That being the case, we
need to ask ourselves what other major power would be willing to prevent such
an assault – and why? The blunt answer is that any intervention on our behalf
would be undertaken solely on strategic grounds. If the subjugation of New Zealand
was deemed inimical to the interests of the United States and Australia, then
they would hasten to our defence. If not, they wouldn’t. The capability and
readiness of our miniscule armed forces would not materially alter their
calculations. Although, it’s at least arguable that the weaker we are, the
quicker they’ll come.

Perhaps, therefore, we should follow the example of Costa
Rica and abolish our armed forces altogether. On 1 December 1948, following a
bloody civil war, the President of Costa Rica announced the abolition of that
country’s armed forces. His decision was confirmed the following year in
Article 12 of the Costa Rican constitution. The monies previously spent on the
military were reallocated to education and culture. The maintenance of internal
security was left to the Police.

Why not do the same? We already have the SIS to warn us of
terrorist attack. Protecting our fisheries could become the task of a
specialised division of the Ministry of Primary Industries. Defence against
cyber-attacks could, similarly, become the responsibility of a special unit
within the Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management.

Imagine the number of state houses and affordable apartments
this country could build over the next 15 years with even half the $20 billion
currently promised to the NZ Defence Force. Surely, in a democratic state, it
is the adequate provision of health, education, housing and employment that
should take priority over the vast sums required to purchase the most
up-to-date weapons of war? If national defence does not mean ensuring the basic
welfare of every citizen – then what does it mean?

As the Costa Rican President realised 68 years ago, if you
maintain a body of armed men, then they will forever be searching for opportunities
to use their weapons. If not provided with foreign foes to fight, they will
start looking for enemies at home.

This essay was
originally posted on the Stuff
website on Monday, 13 June, and published in The Press of Tuesday, 14 June 2016.

Saturday, 11 June 2016

Idealists Or Realists? Sadly, the BDS Movement is a work of idealism, not realism. Its demand that the Israelis concede the Palestinians’ so called “Right of Return” is particularly unrealistic. Only an idealist could make such a demand. Because only an idealist could believe that Israel would ever accede to its own dissolution.

THE GREATEST ENEMY of the peoples of the Middle East is
idealism. It was the idealism of the Zionists that led them to Palestine.
Likewise, the idealism of the American Neo-Conservatives that led them to Iraq.
The young idealists who gathered in Cairo’s Tahrir Square wished for a
democratic Egypt – only to reject it in favour of military intervention when
their wish came true. Idealism is hard to please. It does not compromise.
Neither does it surrender. Idealists cry – “Let justice be done, though the heavens
fall!” – though very few of them are to be found living in the ruins. That’s
because idealists are very good at lighting fires, and notoriously bad at
putting them out. Why else does Syria continue to burn?

As their starting point, those who call themselves
“realists” do not judge the world according to how it should be, but as it is.
Unlike the idealists, they are always willing to compromise. In the ears of the
realist, “surrender” is not a dirty word. They understand that to secure peace,
it is sometimes necessary for one side to give up the fight. Realists
understand that the cry for perfect justice is all-too-often a cry for
perpetual war.

Peace in Northern Ireland was not negotiated by idealists,
but by realists. Peace in Palestine will, likewise, be the achievement of those
who begin with the situation as it is, not as it should be, or, as it was.

The Zionists have been in Palestine since the end of the
nineteenth century. For more than 100 years, they have waged an unceasing – and
largely successful – struggle to transform Palestine into Israel. Since
November 1917, their staunchest allies in this endeavour have been the world’s
pre-eminent powers: first Great Britain and then the United States.

In these circumstances the restoration of the status quo
ante is simply not a realistic option. Nor is a recourse to force
majeure. Three times that has been attempted (1948, 1967, 1973) and three
times it has failed. What’s more, if threatened with imminent destruction, the
State of Israel now possesses sufficient nuclear firepower to turn the entire
Middle East into a radioactive wasteland. No one would be found living in those
ruins.

All of which raises the question: Is the current
Palestinian-initiated campaign to boycott, divest, and impose sanctions on
Israel (the BDS Movement) the work of idealists or realists?

Sadly, the BDS Movement is a work of idealism, not realism.
While it is not inconceivable that the Golan Heights may one day be returned to
Syria (or whatever entities succeed that tragic state) as part of a
comprehensive peace treaty with Israel, it is very difficult to conceive of a
situation in which the Israeli Government would agree to empty the Jewish settlements
on the West Bank. Any attempt to do so would be politically suicidal.

The BDS Movement’s final demand: that the Israelis concede
the Palestinians’ so called “Right of Return” is even less likely to be met.
Only an idealist could make such a demand. Because only an idealist could
believe that Israel would ever accede to its own dissolution.

The “Right of Return” is the supreme example of the
Palestinians’ belief that a return to the status quo ante (i.e. the
legal situation that prevailed before the outbreak of full-scale war between
Israelis and Arabs in 1948) is possible.

Elderly Palestinians who fled their farms and villages in
1948 speak openly of reclaiming their property from its Israeli possessors.
Many still keep the keys to the houses they abandoned at the outbreak of the
war. Even though the vast majority of Palestinians living today were not born
in 1948, the “Right of Return” remains non-negotiable. Palestine is their home
– and they will settle for nothing less.

From the perspective of the Israelis, however, the “Right of
Return” is regarded as code for the destruction of the State of Israel. Not all
Palestinians were driven from their homes in 1948, say the Zionists, many left
voluntarily – confident of reclaiming their property the moment the invading
armies of Israel’s Arab neighbours had driven the Jews into the sea.
Fortunately for the Jews, say the Zionists, the Palestinians lost their bet.
Israel won the war and Palestine ceased to exist as anything other than a
geographical/historical expression.

The Palestinians reject this description utterly. In their
eyes, the geographical/historical entity known as Israel has erected a racist
state comparable to Apartheid South Africa, which must be given no legitimacy
while the territory’s original, Palestinian, inhabitants remain dispossessed of
both their land and their rights.

While the “Right of Return” remains non-negotiable, the
Realists’ “Two State Solution” (in which an independent Palestinian State is
erected on the West Bank of the Jordan River and in the Gaza Strip) remains
dead in the water. While the Palestinians refuse to accept that the status
quo prevailing within the British Mandate of Palestine’s 1948 borders can
never be restored, the Israeli settlers on the West Bank will never be
persuaded to dismantle their communities.

Which also means that while the BDS Movement continues to
demand the Palestinians’ “Right of Return” its chances of success remain slim.
Already Israel’s allies in the USA, the UK and the EU are mobilising their
considerable political and media resources to thwart its divestment campaign
and to brand its leading activists and supporters anti-Semites.

Within Israel itself, the sense of being isolated and
“persecuted” by individuals, organisations and nation states hell-bent on its
destruction has already driven its domestic politics sharply to the right. Far from
weakening the power of Zionism over Israeli society, the BDS Movement is
strengthening its grip.

How ironic it would be if the actions of the BDS Movement,
and other like-minded NGOs, succeeded in transforming the 93-year-old proposal
of Zionism’s most extreme advocate, Vladimir Jabotinsky, into the only
“realistic” alternative.

In 1923, Jabotinsky wrote:

Thus we conclude that we cannot promise anything to the
Arabs of the Land of Israel or the Arab countries. Their voluntary agreement is
out of the question. Hence those who hold that an agreement with the natives is
an essential condition for Zionism can now say “no” and depart from Zionism.
Zionist colonization, even the most restricted, must either be terminated or
carried out in defiance of the will of the native population. This colonization
can, therefore, continue and develop only under the protection of a force
independent of the local population – an iron wall which the native population
cannot break through. This is, in toto, our policy towards the Arabs. To
formulate it any other way would only be hypocrisy.

The Israeli Government has already constructed a concrete
wall to both contain and constrain the lives of the Palestinians within the
territory it occupies. How long can it be before an unrepentent Zionism pushes
every last member of Palestine’s “native population” beyond an all-encompassing
“iron wall” that cannot be broken through?

This essay was posted
on The Daily Blog and Bowalley
Road of Saturday, 11 June 2016.

Friday, 10 June 2016

Sharp Focus: An alarming lack of spin-control by Labour and the Greens meant that for several days the story of their "understanding" went flapping-off in all directions – many of them extremely negative. It was only after Andrew Little had delivered his rip-roaring speech to the Greens’ AGM, and been eloquently seconded by the Green co-leader, James Shaw, that the virtues of the new relationship finally came into focus.

THE ANNOUNCEMENT LAST WEEK of an “understanding” between
Labour and the Greens demonstrated the critical importance of spin-control.
Given less than an hour’s notice that something big was in the offing, most –
perhaps all – of the Parliamentary Press Gallery was left guessing.

Given that journalists, no less than Cabinet Ministers, hate
surprises, this was remarkable. Worse still, it was the sort of behaviour that
makes journalists wonder why they expend so much energy building relationships
of trust and confidence with senior politicians and their spin-doctors.

If something big is looming, the expectation of the fourth
estate is that it will be given slightly more than an hour’s warning. A little
help in answering those five all-important questions – What? Who? When? Where?
Why? – while not mandatory, is also appreciated.

The major consequence this curious deficiency in
spin-control from Labour and the Greens is that for several days the story
went flapping-off in all directions – many of them extremely negative. It was
only on Saturday, after Andrew Little had delivered his rip-roaring speech to
the Greens’ AGM, and been eloquently seconded by the Green co-leader, James
Shaw, that the virtues of the Red-Green “understanding” finally came into
focus.

Whatever the reason for Labour’s and the Greens’ initial
failures in communication (and there are some intriguing explanations currently
doing the rounds) the clear priority, now, is for the news media to continue
debating the political meaning of this new Red-Green entente.

The most important question arising out of this debate is:
Will the new relationship grow or shrink the combined Labour-Green Party Vote?

The current journalistic consensus holds that it will
shrink.

Under the new relationship, runs this argument, the Greens
can only increase their support at Labour’s expense; leaving Labour to grow its
vote at the expense of National and NZ First. This strategy is unlikely to bear
the required electoral fruit, however, because neither National nor NZ First
voters will embrace a government-in-waiting which includes the ‘weird and
wacky’, ‘Far Left’, Greens.

Those advancing this argument go further: insisting that not
only will Labour be unable to attract the 5-10 percentage points it needs from
National and NZ First if it and the Greens are to win a plurality of the Party
Vote, but also that Labour’s more conservative supporters – alarmed by their
party’s new relationship with the ‘weird and wacky’, ‘Far Left’, Greens – will
desert Labour for the altogether more familiar fleshpots of Winston Peters and
the Tories.

The alternative – much more optimistic – argument in favour of the new relationship takes
as its starting-point an alleged majority of voters’ disquiet with the way New
Zealand society is developing. This disquiet, it is claimed, extends right
across the traditional political spectrum. It is fuelled by a deep concern that
the nation has lost its way: that far too many New Zealanders are turning their
faces from the demonstrable distress of their fellow citizens; and that unless
there is an immediate and radical change of direction, then the country they
grew up in, the country they love, will become unrecognisable.

For a change in voting behaviour on this scale to have the
slightest hope of occurring, Labour and the Greens will have to convince the
electorate that the 2017 election is not going to be a battle between Left and
Right, but between simple human decency and self-centred social indifference.

The choice Labour-Green needs to be offering voters is: to
start moving forward again as a nation; or, to continue the present downward
slide into more inequality, more poverty.

Crucial to the success of this strategy will be the degree
to which the Labour-Green alliance can convince the nation that it’s the Right
– not the Left – who have become slaves to an ideology. Labour and the Greens
must persuade voters that theirs are the policies offering practical, common-sense
solutions; and that if New Zealanders want to be part of a progressive future,
then they must reject the regressive policies of a ruthless, market-driven
dogma that is demonstrably failing.

The great virtue of this argument is that it reserves for
Winston Peters and his voters an honourable and influential role in the
destruction of the present government, as well as in constructing the next.

John Key’s reign will not be ended by one party, or two.
It’s going to take the whole Opposition.

UPDATE: Following the announcement of the Red-Green "understanding", Colmar-Brunton's pollsters registered a statistically significant shift towards Labour of approximately 5 percentage points. This additional support had, however, come at the expense of NZ First and the Greens. National's support hardly budged. It is, of course, early days, but this result suggests that the anti-Government vote is beginning to consolidate around the Labour Party, as those who had more-or-less given up on Labour ever getting its act together thankfully return to the fold. - C.T.

This essay was
originally published in The Waikato Times, The Taranaki Daily News, The
Timaru Herald, The Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Star of Friday, 10 June 2016.

Tuesday, 7 June 2016

Right Place, Right Time, Right People: Andrew Little earned a standing ovation from Green Party members for his speech to their AGM, held in Lincoln over Queens's Birthday Weekend. (4-6/6/16) He was followed by the Greens' Co-Leader, James Shaw, who delivered the best speech of his career. Wouldn't it be nice if our political leaders were judged by these considered and deliberate statements of their political intent, rather than by the "Gotcha!" journalism of today's news media?

HOW DIFFERENT politics would be if our political leaders
were judged solely by the force of their public speeches. Fanciful though it
may sound to twenty-first century ears, a good or bad speech could make or
break the politicians of yesteryear. It’s why such political giants as Winston
Churchill devoted so many hours to perfecting the wording and delivery of their
public utterances. It’s why Abraham Lincoln will forever be associated with the
266 words he penned on the train to Gettysburg. Likewise, but in darker hues,
can anyone imagine a successful Adolf Hitler without the extraordinary power of
his public oratory?

Had these giants of yesteryear been subject to the unending
and intimate scrutiny of today’s political leaders would they have succeeded? Would
Churchill be remembered for his inspiring wartime speeches, or for the
screaming newspaper headline: “Lazy Winston’s silk undies!” Would the fledgling
Republican Party have pinned their hopes on such a peculiar-looking candidate
as Abe Lincoln? Or would their media advisors have ruled out broadcasting so
odd a face into the living-rooms of America? Could Hitler have survived the
Twitter flash: “Adolf and Geli! Keeping it all in the family?”

These were the questions that occurred to me as I watched first
Andrew Little, and then James Shaw, address the Annual General Meeting of the
Greens last Saturday afternoon. What if these two speeches were all that we,
the voters, had with which to assess Labour and the Greens?

Both addresses were well constructed, well written, and
surprisingly well delivered.

James Shaw, in particular, was visibly buoyed by the
audience’s reception. Having heard him speak on a number of occasions, I was
not expecting much more than an adequate presentation. Even with an excellent
text to read from, Shaw’s past performances have typically involved
considerably more wood than fire.Not so
on Saturday. As the audience – already heated by Little’s rousing address –
stamped their feet and cheered, Shaw braced himself against their warm gusts of
positivity and, digging deep, found that magic vocal register which at once
reassures and inspires a political audience.

“I want to give New Zealand a better vision of the future”,
Shaw effused. “It’s a future where, on your weekends away, you’ll go to sleep
at night safely knowing that the same beach that you’re enjoying will be there
for future generations, unthreatened by rising seas. In the morning, you’ll be
woken by a dawn chorus from flocks of birds that once bordered on extinction. After
lunch you’ll pack the family into your electric car and head safely home on
uncongested roads while your kids count the containers on the freight trains
running on the tracks alongside you. If you’ve got time, you might even stop by
a river on your way home – and actually swim in it!”

So vociferous was the audience’s response that the static
camera through which the event was being streamed live across the Internet
actually began to shake on its tripod. It was only when I glanced at the meter
displaying the number of people logged-on that I realised how very few we were.
While I watched, it never registered more than 172 viewers.

Five hundred people, tops, would have absorbed the messages
that Little and Shaw delivered live on Saturday afternoon. (Although, it must
be admitted, tens-of-thousands more may have tuned-in to watch the one-to-two
minute clips of the event broadcast on the six o’clock news.) What is
undeniable, however, is that how the event should be framed, and which tiny
fraction of the two speeches should be broadcast, were decisions over which
neither Little nor Shaw exercised the slightest control.

Eighty years ago, Labour’s first Prime Minister, Michael
Joseph Savage, got over this problem by legislating for the live broadcasting
of Parliament. Notwithstanding the near universal media hostility, Labour’s
leaders were soon able to communicate directly with their supporters.
Tens-of-thousands tuned-in to hear the parliamentary debates that changed a
nation. Speeches were more important than ever.

The opening of Labour’s 1984 election campaign is the last
time I can recall a party leader’s speech being broadcast live to the nation.
David Lange’s minders were biting their nails, but the moment the big man
opened his mouth it was clear their fears were groundless. Lange’s rhetoric, to
paraphrase Labour’s campaign anthem, soon lifted them up where they belonged.

So, the next time you see Andrew Little rear like a startled
draughthorse as the camera lights are switched on, and the microphones, like
snakes’ heads, are thrust under his chin, ask yourself whether this is the sort
of test which the great leaders of the past (or, indeed, any ordinary person)
could have taken in their stride?

If our leaders are no longer judged by their speeches: but
by their gaffes; in what way is our democracy improved?

This essay was
originally published in The Press of Tuesday,
7 June 2016.

Thursday, 2 June 2016

Not Now And Not This Way: The Labour and Green parties have announced their new “Understanding” far too soon; without preparing the electorate or priming the news media; without securing real and valuable gains for both partners; without carefully gauging the reaction of both their members and their voters; and without having straightforward answers to journalists’ straightforward (and entirely predictable) questions.

AS SO OFTEN HAPPENS when I appear on Paul Henry’s morning
show, a host of lefties have devoted the rest of the day to disowning me.
Underpinning their criticism is a strongly held belief that anyone billed as
“left-wing” has a duty to stick up for Team Red – no matter what. Independent
critical analysis is not considered helpful. Whenever someone like Paul Henry
asks someone from the Left for their opinion, the only acceptable response,
apparently, is: “Hooray for our side!”

But whatever else I may be, I am not a cheerleader. If I
believe the Labour and Green parties have announced their new “Understanding”
far too soon; without preparing the electorate or priming the news media;
without securing real and valuable gains for both partners; without carefully
gauging the reaction of both their members and their voters; and without having
straightforward answers to journalists’ straightforward (and entirely
predictable) questions; then I reserve the right to speak bluntly and critically
about these deficiencies.

I further think that it is especially important to give
voice to my misgivings if the deficiencies I’ve observed suggest a host of even
bigger problems behind the scenes.

For months now there has been much discussion “inside the
beltway” of Labour’s deep-seated financial difficulties. The slightest
suggestion that a person might harbour left-wing sympathies has been enough to
earn them a deluge of begging e-mails from Andrew Little and other Labour
politicians. People make a joke of it, but those who know something about
political fundraising are only too aware that these are the tactics of
desperation.

It gets worse. Just last week the veteran political
journalist, Richard Harman, writing on his “Politik” blog, suggested that
Labour’s membership might now be less than the Greens. If true (and Richard is
no slouch when it comes to acquiring “usually reliable” sources) that would
indicate a total of, at most, 5,000. Some have gone so far as to say that if
the number of affiliated trade union members is subtracted from that total,
then there may actually be fewer than 2,000 paid-up ordinary members in the
whole party.

This is the kind of information that a political analyst
draws upon when confronted with an event like yesterday’s announcement. And so,
because I cannot pretend to be unaware of Labour’s difficulties, I will not
characterise Labour’s decision to strengthen its relationship with the Greens
as anything other than a desperate concession of organisational and electoral weakness.
Indeed, were I a member of the Labour Caucus, I would be demanding to read the
fine print of this new “Red-Green Alliance”.

Even were Labour coming at this from a position of strength,
I would be doubtful of its efficacy. The historian in me reacts badly when
people cite the example of 1998 – when Labour and the Alliance finally decided
to end their civil war. The punishment meted out to both parties by the voters
in 1996 had transformed the theoretical arguments in favour of reconciliation
into objective psephological fact. Both Jim Anderton and Helen Clark knew they
had to respond to the wishes of their core constituencies, and they did so with
tremendous theatricality. In their superbly choreographed television embrace,
centre-left voters saw the beginning of the end of Jenny Shipley’s turncoat
government. Clark, quoting Dickens’ A
Tale of two Cities, called it “The Spring of Hope”.

The skill with which the coming together of Labour and the
Alliance was communicated to the electorate spoke volumes about the readiness
of both parties for the rigors of office. The gimcrack quality of yesterday’s
(31/5/16) announcement: a hastily cobbled together presser in the old
Legislative Chamber; likewise had a story to tell.

It is the story of an exhausted and impecunious political
organisation. A party stumbling towards its 100th anniversary in
desperate need of support – any support.
It is also the story of a younger and much more vital party desperate for its
chance to exercise real power, and absolutely determined that it will not, once
again, be robbed of its chance at the eleventh hour.

Such is my understanding of the Labour-Green
“Understanding”.

Those who think they’ve witnessed a marriage made in
electoral heaven – should think again.

This essay was
originally posted on The Daily Blog
of Wednesday, 1 June 2016.